Monday, January 30, 2012

Atlanta, named Seventh Best Start Up City by Entrepreneur Magazine is growing, growing, growing! Vibrant and charismatic, Atlanta has a lot to offer: affordable housing, strong schools, big arts scene…these are just a few of the reasons people are flocking there.

We've also noticed a lot of growth in the real estate realm: with investors drawn to the area, many more rental and condo buildings have sprung up in the last decade. In fact, over 25 of the best-managed Atlanta properties have chosen BuildingLink to help run their buildings, and we've got some theories as to why:

We make it easy to provide top-notch service to residents

Despite Atlanta's modernity, there is still that strong undercurrent of "Southern" chivalry. Atlanta buildings are dedicated to providing exceptional service and hospitality to their guests and residents, and we make that task as easy as pie (pecan, of course!) We’ve had more than one concierge or manager tell us just how much the system assisted them in providing consistently high-level service.

We integrate the latest in state-of-the-art technology

The city as a whole is very technology oriented, and was even listed as one of America's top wired cities by Forbes.com. So it's no wonder there is such a demand for BuildingLink's innovative platform: it fits in perfectly with today's needs and expectations.

We make it easy to communicate from wherever you are

Buildings in Atlanta often have to deal with third-party companies and owners/investors who live in other metro cities. BuildingLink's web based platform allows users to login from any computer (or smartphone app!) and access the information they need wherever they are. In fact, we'll leave you with this…

Customer Comment (from a staff member at Plaza Midtown):

"BuildingLink Is Incredible; best innovation in every-day property/residential tracking and cataloging. It's completely customizable and gives you exactly what you're looking for with many more benefits. My company has multiple properties and most of them were using quick books, excel, word and hand-written records for contacting residents; once we displayed the advantages of using BuildingLink to manage all their contacts and resident information they switched their methods rather quickly. It's a "No Brainer": All residential/commercial properties dealing with multiple people and contacts should use BuildingLink--you'll be more than satisfied."

Friday, January 20, 2012

First of all, in case you don’t know already, “Event Log” and “Instructions” are two different sections of BuildingLink that allow you to keep track of different types of things:
-Event Log lets staff track and record physical items coming in and out of the building (like packages), and notifies residents of package (and other) deliveries.
-Instructions keep track of permission-to-enters , do-not-allows, and other special “instructions” residents might give. They can also be customized to inform staff that a resident is away.
This case study regards an NYC building whose residents are often away on vacations for extended periods of time. The building’s staff needed an easy way to see who to hold packages for, while still informing residents that their deliveries were arriving. The most straightforward way to do this would be to continue logging packages in the Event Log, while also creating an instruction to inform staff if a particular resident were away. The only downside to this is that sometimes staff can miss an instruction when they spend the bulk of their time looking at the Event Log grid. So, what to do?
Here are several possible solutions:
•Print out Instructions so that staff does not have to keep looking them up.
•Enter events from the Resident Lookup screen, so that Instructions for the unit are visible on the same page.
•Create an Event type that is open whenever a resident is away - (but staff will have to remember to close it out when that resident comes back!)
In this case, the building decided to create a “HOLD” Event type so that they could use the Event Log to track when a particular resident were away. They still record the package in the Event Log to notify the resident, but know to hold the package. When the resident returns, they can close out both the “HOLD” Event type and the package.
If you have a situation like this one, and you’re not sure how to best use BuildingLink to help you manage it, contact our support staff! We’ll be able to talk with you in detail about all the different ways you could proceed, and help you find the one that makes sense for you.

Friday, January 13, 2012

The article linked to here discusses how drastically the apartment vacancy rate is falling, great news for the rental market. As this market continues to grow, the demand for better amenities (which are often used to lure potential renters) will also grow. BuildingLink, and other technology like BuildingLink, aims to respond to this demand, and is a great way to advertise your rental property.
Even garden style communities accept packages, log maintenance requests, and have reservable amenities--and these are things that quickly become time-suckers, even when they really shouldn't be! At BuildingLink, we make these and other nitty-gritty tasks seamless and efficient--and it really shows in the quality of life that residents in BuildingLink buildings experience. In fact, a robust platform like BuildingLink is the perfect way to attract potential residents: let them know who has the "goods"-- we think they'll follow.